-no server administration
-free usage quotas
-scalability
-ease of deployment
-sdk able to run on client, and then deploy program onto server
-access to Google user accounts
-eclipse plug-ins
Disadvantages
-inability to tweak server software
-filesystem isn't accessible
-many standard library modules are inaccessible
-only Python and whatever runs on JVM
-Bigtable datastore format, non-relational
-reduced set of features and functions results in strong lock-in
**Bigtable datastore: non relational, 3rd time dimension, no defined set of attributes across records (some records may have properties others do not)
Amazon runs a virtual machine which gives you the flexibility to install and run any software on EC2 instances
They have a windows environment virtual machine along with linux and a few others.
"The bottom line is using Google App Engine will be more restrictive than the development and deployment environments that you are used to. The datastore is more difficult to use than a relational database(which for example has global transactions, joins on tables, and a subset of the types of queries that you can do with a relational database). Not being able to start and manage long-running processes also makes some kinds of applications difficult to write. "
Pricing:
GAE is free until the site gets over 5million hits a month
AWS has a new free usage tier available as of November 2010 that allows free usage for 12 months (Linux) or $.03 per hour for windows
